City of Baltimore v. Fine

• Decision Date: 06 May 1925
• Docket Number: 10.
• Parties: MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE ET AL. v. FINE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

129 A. 356

148 Md. 324

MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE ET AL. v. FINE.

No. 10.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

May 6, 1925

Appeal from Superior Court of Baltimore City; George A. Solter Judge.

Petition for mandamus by Louis Fine against the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore and another. From a final order directing the issuance of the writ as prayed, defendants appeal. Reversed and petition dismissed.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and PATTISON, URNER, ADKINS, OFFUTT PARKE, and WALSH, JJ.

Wirt A. Duvall, Jr., Deputy Sol., of Baltimore (Philip B. Perlman, City Sol., and Paul F. Due, Asst. Sol., both of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellants.

George W. Lindsay and E. Allan Sauerwein, Jr., both of Baltimore (Sauerwein, Lindsay & Donoho, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

PARKE J.

Chapter 412 of the Acts of 1924, amending article 56 of the Annotated Code of Maryland, entitled "Licenses," subtitle "Motor Vehicles," by adding a new section, reads thus:

"141-A. The commissioner of motor vehicles is hereby authorized and directed to refuse to issue or transfer any plate or marker, certificate of registration or title for any motor vehicle unless he is satisfied that all taxes due and in arrears thereon have been paid. This section shall only apply to applications made for motor vehicles owned in the city of Baltimore, and provided that this section shall apply only in the case of taxes becoming due and in arrears in the year 1924 and thereafter. Nothing in this act shall apply to commercial trucks."

The act became effective on June 1, 1924. Five months later the appellee, Louis Fine, who was a resident of Baltimore City, proposed to sell his Hudson automobile, which was not a commercial truck. In order for him to consummate the sale, the certificate of title to the automobile had to be assigned by him to the buyer, and the title transferred to the buyer upon the records of the commissioner of motor vehicles. Article 56, section 202, of the Annotated Code (1924). It was therefore a condition precedent to the transfer of the title from the seller to the buyer that the appellee should first satisfy the commissioner of motor vehicles that all taxes becoming due and in arrears in the year 1924 on said automobile had been paid. Moreover, if the sale were not made, he could not obtain a license for the automobile in 1925, unless the taxes were paid. Acts of 1924, chapter 412; Bagby's Code (1924) art. 56, § 183.

The appellee had been a resident of Baltimore City for at least five years and the owner of personal property during this period, but he had not paid any of his taxes on the personalty since the year 1919. All the while automobiles formed a part of his personal property. During May, 1923, he disposed of three commercial trucks, and the only motor vehicle he then had left was the Hudson automobile, which he had bought in the year 1921.

The taxes levied in Baltimore City for that municipality and for the state are collected by the collector of taxes for the mayor and city of Baltimore. Baltimore City Charter (1915) p. 90, § 58. For the purpose of securing satisfactory evidence of the payment of the taxes becoming due and in arrears on account of the Hudson automobile in the year 1924, the appellee requested of the collector of taxes a separate bill and receipt for the city and state taxes for 1924 on the automobile alone as determined by its assessed value, and tendered himself ready and willing to pay this isolated amount. The collector declined to accept the offer or to give a receipt. He took the position that all, and not a part, of the taxes due and in arrears on account of all the automobiles then and theretofore owned by the appellee should be paid. Instead of paying the taxes demanded, the appellee instituted proceedings against the mayor and city council of Baltimore and Charles P. Coady, collector of taxes, petitioning that a writ of mandamus be issued commanding them to accept from the appellee that portion of the taxes due and owing by him for the year 1924, with interest and penalties thereto attached, that would be apportioned to him on account of his ownership of the Hudson automobile. From the final order of the court directing the issuance of the writ as prayed, the mayor and city council of Baltimore and the city collector have taken this appeal.

The points presented on this appeal involve important practical questions in the administration of revenue laws, and they must be resolved with the realization that chapter 412 of the Acts of 1924 does not affect their operation and enforcement but simply makes the prepayment of the taxes due and in arrears for 1924 and thereafter on any one of a class of automobiles, owned by residents of Baltimore, a condition precedent to its future operation or change of title. The act prescribes but the one prerequisite. It is silent as to the owner's method of paying the tax and indicates no change in procedure on the part of the officials charged with its collection. Inasmuch as the revenue laws are left unaffected by chapter 412, it would seem an unstrained deduction that the General Assembly had viewed with equanimity the probability that the automobile owner would be compelled to pay all his future overdue taxes in order to be able to satisfy the commissioner of motor vehicles of the payment of the fractional part which...